You know you’re getting old when you know your body so well that you really don’t have to question what something means. In this case, it was my heart rate, which I just couldn’t get over 154 or so climbing up Kings this morning. Normally I’d be in the mid-160s when pushing it, but nothing doing, my heart just wasn’t responding in a manner that corresponded with effort. It was simply hitting a brick wall at 154 (and I wasn’t going any faster than 154 would indicate either). For most people, this would indicate over-training, a symptom that says you need to back off a bit because your body’s rebelling. For me, that’s an impossibility because I only get to ride three times/week (other than my short commute).

From past experience, I know that a non-responsive heart rate often occurs the day before I come down with something. And guess what? Tonight I’m downing cold-eze, hoping to keep an obvious oncoming cold from getting worse. What’s the deal here? I’ve read nowhere else of evidence that a heart that won’t kick into gear is a leading indicator of getting sick, and yet for me, it’s happened time and time again. Is it just so strange that nobody has given it any thought? I know that, if not for the attention I pay to my heart rate (just one of those things I do, not something that anything good really comes of, just more information to process that might somehow make riding a bike seem more important), I never would have noticed it.

So as you can imagine, I was bringing up the rear of a moderate-sized group that included the two Kevins (and this time, the younger Kevin is doing pretty well after having had his kidney stent removed yesterday), Karl, Karen, Mark P (whom we haven’t seen in some time), Marcus, George, Todd… and me, way off the back. Just under 29 minutes to the top, but once there, I was able to play with the big dogs for the most part, because there isn’t that much of the ride that requires a high heart rate. Except the upper part of West Old LaHonda, and yeah, I pulled up the rear again.

The funny thing about it is that I’ll feel better riding when I actually feel sick, because I have something tangible to fight against. Much better than just riding slow for apparently no good reason.

Last night Kevin, Becky and I were riding home from the shop after work, and I noticed it was 7:33pm when we left, exactly 12 hours prior to when Kevin and I leave for the Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride. And, sure enough, I check the Garmin and we left at 7:33am. We made better time than normal getting to the start though, since we spotted Andrew from the RC shop just ahead of us, and Kevin of course had to run him down.

Marcus, Kevin, George, Jan, Chris(? a friend of Karl’s who works with him at REI), the other Kevin, Todd… who else? Ah, Ludo joined is for a bit, first time out for him in many months. Brandon had gotten an earlier start and was riding as fast as he could, ahead of us, trying to not get caught until late in the ride. What he didn’t know was that we were riding at a civilized pace (again), and held up a bit first when I waited up for Kevin (son, not the pilot) who wanted to shed his leg warmers at the park entrance up Kings, and then later for George when he tossed his chain.

Kevin (son, not the pilot) had wanted to get in some extra miles by dropping down to LaHonda and heading back up West Alpine, but found no takers today. I couldn’t go with him because it would add over an hour to the ride and not get me back in time for work. Darn, would have been nice! As it was we ran about 11 minutes late at the finish, never really getting into that “fast” groove this morning.

It was Tuesday that George got on my case about some of my Strava ride descriptions, basically focusing on the pain and challenges, making it not sound like fun. And that hit me, because my job, seriously, is to make cycling seem like something people want to do, not have to. So today I set out to “have fun” even though it was a Thursday, which meant the tougher route to Skyline, up through the park. It worked! It’s not as if I was very fast heading up the hill (I wasn’t), but that didn’t matter. I was out on a bike, riding with friends, and looking for the little things that make each ride over roads I’ve ridden hundreds of times, a bit different.

Hard to put my finger on why this morning’s ride seemed a lot more fun than most, and more the way I remember from the past. Pretty big group, as you can see in the photo. Weather? Not like a few days ago, so dressed up in leg warmers and light base layers, but not bad either. My only concern was that I’d forgotten to use my asthma inhaler before the ride but it really didn’t seem to make much difference. Yes, I sounded a bit worse, kind of a wheezy sound at the bottom of each breath, but I felt pretty good.

The group stayed together on the climb up Kings, with the exception of Kevin J, who’d had to take a brief stop for relief near Huddart, and I rode a bit behind the main group so I could keep an eye on him and make sure he was doing OK. We came across Brandon, who’d left a few minutes earlier than us, just past the park; he had intentions of trying to hold our pace for a while, but that’s tough to do when you’re carrying a backpack with work clothes on a bike that’s a good deal heavier than the rest of us were riding.

Everyone stayed together the rest of the ride, at a good but not deadly pace. The sort of thing that I could really get used to. And I can especially get used to completely dry roads on descents! No worries about sliding on tar stripes, nor holding back impatient cars behind. Life is good on days like today. There will be many more.

First ride for Kevin in two weeks; maybe, just maybe, he’s turning the corner on the pain from his latest kidney procedure. Of course despite my warnings that he should take it easy he had to try and ride with Marcus up Kings and, what do you know, ends up with something like a pulled muscle in the groin area sort of thing. We ended up not doing the West Old LaHonda loop, shortening the ride by about 6 miles, but the good news is that he can ride and went through the day without the continuous pain that’s been his partner for a while. This is good!